1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for debiting shipping services of various carriers, preferably for package mail, on the basis of the respective transport service fee schedules of the carriers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In modern offices, package shipping ensues at a personal computer, referred to as a PC below. A package shipping system known as Euklas is commercially available from Francotyp-Postalia AG & Co. This system attends to the shipping handling of, for example, letters, printed matter, goods shipments, small packages, postal matter and packages. A carrier, for example the mails, USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, DPD and/or other shippers accept the shipment and conduct it to a destination address. On the basis of valid shipping service fee schedules of the carriers, the system calculates the shipping fee for the shipping services, produces a freight label that contains the remuneration and other necessary shipping information and prints out shipping papers in the usual way.
The monetary settlement of the shipping service with the consignor is done by the carrier. To that end, the carrier bills the consignor the cost incurred for the services. The payment by the consignor ensues without pre-payment.
This known system employs a PC with a data bank in which a number of transport service fee schedules for various carriers is stored. The PC is connected to at least one scale in order to receive weight data from the scale and to calculate the payment value on the basis of the transport service fee schedules in accord with the selected shipping options within the framework of the system use.
In another version the shipment weight is separately determined and is entered via an unit together with other shipping data such as, for example, the postal area code, format particulars and supplementary freight data, and the payment value is calculated therefrom. The consignor determines supplementary freight data or, respectively, shipping options such as, for example, recipient address, type of shipment, shipping form and carrier by corresponding inputs via the PC keyboard or by selecting from a menu offering. Shipping papers and freight labels for the shipment are produced with printer devices that are connected to the PC.
The pick-up service of the respective carrier individually reviews the scope of the shipment on the basis of the freight papers that have been produced and confirms the correctness of the calculated payment values for the received shipment by estimation or by re-measurement. The processing data collected by the package shipping system assure the review of the scope of the shipment and enable a package and event search given shipping errors. Beyond this, shipping data can be compiled for monthly and annual statistics, separately for each carrier. A specific embodiment of an apparatus for shipment handling is set forth in German OS 3808616.
A package shipping system of the described type has an acquisition cost and maintenance costs associated therewith which usually cause the system not be suitable on a cost/benefit basis for customers having low mail volume.
On the other hand, shipping processes are becoming more and more complicated since the number of private carriers in the field of shipping services is constantly increasing, and the spectrum of services is also experiencing broad expansion. A problem even for relatively low-volume shipping customers thus is that the carriers each render their own invoices and each has unique billing routines and associated paperwork, so that a customer cannot implement a standardized payment procedure.
On the other hand, it is conventional to utilize a postage meter machine for debiting payments for letter mail. The postage meter machine can be equipped with a control unit, a memory, an input unit, a modem or other data reception means, an input/output interface and a printer. Due to the coupling to, among other things, a scale and a tape dispenser, technical means are present in order to also make package mail ready for shipping in addition to letter mail. The shipping particulars applicable to a franking tape can be determined, calculated and printed out. The producible stamp (franking) imprint meets the requirements of the Deutsche Post AG for letter mail. Postage meter machines are subject to approval by the national postal authorities. Only those machines that assure an accurate administration, reloading and debiting of monetary amounts and which have a secure printer means receive approval.
The transfer of credits into the postage meter machine already ensues, at least in part, from a remote data center via a telecommunication means. The measures for securing money requests and accounting operations for preventing tampering or unauthorized usage require a high technical outlay for checking the use authorization and the identification of the postage meter machine. All known postage meter machines have in common the fact that they only execute a payment imprint when sufficient credit is loaded in the postage meter machine. This payment regime, referred to as pre-payment, is unsuitable for the handling of package shipments since the payments for this type of shipment are orders of magnitude higher than the shipment handling for letters and similar mailings. Pre-financing therefore cannot be expected from the consignor. This unreasonability will be even more is drastically intensified as further private freight concerns penetrate the field of package shipping in the future, which would necessitate that separate monetary credits be established for them.
Solutions are known such as, for example, that disclosed in German OS 2201051 for employing a postal apparatus for calculating postal fees for package shipping. The apparatus provided for self-service mailing employs two printer devices for printing the fees and the address data as well as the package identification for special services. An imprint is only generated when money amounts were paid to a sufficient extent. Handling by automatic unit is very time-consuming for the customer since the customer itself must get its package mail to be sent to the mail counter. This handling by automatic unit is also not lucrative in view of the cash expediting. Increased outlay occurs for the carrier due to the immediate payment administration. The communication of a postage meter machine with a remote data processing system for central debiting of postage fees is disclosed, for example, in German OS 3126785 and German OS 3126786. The securing of this connection between postage meter machine and data center is a necessary approval prerequisite of the system by the applicable postal authorities in order to preclude the manipulability of the amounts of money to be accounted for. The machine-oriented measures therefor are extremely cost-intensive.
German OS 3644231 proposes a secured accounting unit similar to a postage meter machine into which funds are offered from a remote data center that is in communication with a remote resetting center for accounting for the funds. Postage reloading events are collected and stored in this remote resetting center. The transfer of postage credits ensues given simultaneous debiting of the transferred credit value from the customer's account, as disclosed, for example, in German OS 3644230. The retention of the flexibility of package shipping cannot be implemented for this accounting principle based on a pre-payment. In particular, it is problematical that every carrier establishes its own data center that sets up a communication connection to the customer equipment and transfers credits. It is also disadvantageous for the customer that several accounts would have to be set up given a number of carriers, the account coverage would have to be assured and the various accounting procedures would have to be monitored. Required security measures for assuring protection against manipulation make corresponding devices more expensive to acquire.
French Patent 2730575 discloses a franking, accounting and invoicing method for postal articles and services that employs an approved data processing system. The data are edited in the data processing system and forwarded through a postage meter machine. The data processing system communicates a user program that comprises a customer account. At the end of an action, the customer can determine whether the action is to be paid immediately or whether a billing should ensue at the end of a previously determined time span.
This method allows the review of the coincidence of the register contents of the postage meter machine and the register contents of the data processing system. It is disadvantageous that the customer must maintain adequate credit in the postage meter machine and must additionally maintain a customer account in the data processing system.
German OS 3624116 discloses a method for franking mailings with fees that are selectable in advance in terms of value. The fees printed by a printer are automatically communicated to an acquisition stage at least temporarily connected to the printer via a telephone connection and are registered at the acquisition stage. This solution is also based on enabling printing of the franking imprint only when sufficient credit is present. The security measures make devices similar to postage meter machines too expensive for the employment as printer of non-monetary characters.
German OS 4034292 discloses a method with which terminal equipment present at the user, for example a telefax device, can be used for the implementation of fee imprints, and the debiting of the postage fees ensues in a data center.
A secured postage box that receives credits and a print enable signal from the data center via the communication connection is allocated to the terminal equipment for fee accounting for individual frankings. This system still has the disadvantage that the customer can obtain credit only by pre-payment. Moreover, high costs arise for the respective connections with the data center. Further, the use of a number of carriers is difficult to realize technically since, in particular, the creation of the pre-conditions for the availability of current, respective fee schedule tables of a number of carriers necessitates high technical outlay given corresponding terminal equipment.
This outlay, however, is already realized in modern postage meter machines. As a result of their intended use, the calculation of the postage fee for a mailing is possible from fee schedule tables and other data that can be entered via the keyboard. The pre-conditions are also established for loading fee schedule tables from a data center or by means of data carriers for various services into the memories of the postage meter machine or to update stored contents. As disclosed in European Application 747846, the most favorable vendor can be determined from a number of carriers. What is thus particularly achieved is that shipping actions can be handled in a previously standard way by more efficient methods.
German OS 3903718 discloses a postage fee accounting system for which a personal computer is provided in order to produce extensive accounting reports via a connected printer. For monitoring credit of a department-related postage meter machine use, data are transmitted to a chip card, particularly relating to the register contents of the security account. The fetchable information can be displayed and printed out in various formats. This solution can also be applied to other delivery services that require a franking imprint but has all of the disadvantages that have already been recited for a pre-payment. Even if chip cards were allocated for individual carriers, a consignor would have to acquire a corresponding number of credits for the execution of the frankings. This debiting with pre-financing is uneconomical, particularly for consignors with low shipment volume.